LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - MARCH 3, 2019 by Lynne Belluscio With the recent photos of the ice breaking up at the end of Lake Erie, it brought to mind the early recollections of the early travelers during the win- ter. It was said that it was eas- ier to travel in the winter when sleds could be used. Wagons got mired in the mud. An ac- count on February 28, 1795 in Albany noted that five hundred sleighs passed through the city between sunrise and sunset on their way west. Another account noted: “It was estimated that 1200 sleighs, freighted with men, women, children and fur- niture, passed through the city in three days, from the east , to settle in the Genesee Country.” Try to imagine traveling in this kind of weather, with all your earthly goods, to the wilder- ness, to build a log cabin and start a new life on the frontier. As these caravans of settlers ar- rived at the Finger Lakes, they were relieved to see the lakes frozen. Out onto the frozen lakes, they took their sleds and oxen to cross to the other side, much quicker than trying to ne- gotiate between the trees and underbrush. One such fellow, when arriving in what we know as Rochester, had a bit of a chal- lenge getting across the Gene- see River above the falls: “Mr. Goodhue made his early advent to this region from Canisteo, with his family and household goods, upon an ox sled; con- suming six days in the journey; in several instances carrying his goods by hand over windfalls. Arriving at the Genesee River, in the month of February, he found the ice had thawed away from the banks to a distance of 15 or 16 feet. He had to erect a temporary bridge to get upon the solid ice. Approaching the opposite shore, the same diffi- culty existed there; or at least the ice was rotten. Unyok- ing his oxen, in endeavoring to drive across they broke in and came near being drowned. Reaching the opposite shore, his wife, sled, and effects, be- ing yet on the solid ice, to get them over, he went to work to make a bridge; but while thus engaged the section of the ice upon which they were, broke off, and was moving with the current, likely to be precipitat- ed over the Falls. Seizing a pole and throwing it to his wife, she fastened one end of it the sled, and hitching his oxen to the oth- er end of it he towed the ice to the shore; and thus succeeded in saving his wife and household effects. In a few moments, the cake of ice from which they had been extricated, went over the Falls!”(I have often wondered what the conversation was after they both got to shore.) Here is a description of the Genesee Country in 1804. “Water commonly begins to be frozen near the first week of October, and snow usually falls near the 20th of November - - Snow commonly lies about nine inches deep. In the beginning of the year 1800, snow fell in most places about three feet deep, but there is no other instance known of so great a fall of it. The con- tinuation of snow, besides its usefulness to grain, renders sleighs common and convenient for the transportation to market, a pair of horses travelling, with thirty bushels, at the rate of 35 or 40 miles in a day. Winters usually break up about the mid- dle of March.” “In the winter of 1806- 1807, a deep snow came sud- denly in December – a thaw succeeded, leaving the openings pretty much bare, but there was eight or ten inches of snow left in the woods, which suddenly crusted over. This drove the deer, in large flocks, into the openings. They were in good condition, and we could easily kill all we wanted . . . The win- ter I have spoken of, was gen- erally a very severe one; toward the last of March and beginning of April, there was a heavy fall of snow - - it was from four to five feet in depth; on the river, three and half feet.” Henry Brewster, 1807, de- cided to transport his flour to Connecticut by sled. “Purchas- ing six yoke of oxen, I put them upon two sleds and two spans of horses, each upon a sleigh. With the four teams, I transported my 70 barrels of flour; was on the road twenty days; sold my flour at $6 a barrel and my oxen at a profit – all for cash in hand.” One particular winter, it was noted that there was no snow and no one could get to Syracuse to get salt for preserving meat which proved to be quite a hardship. A student from Ingham University wrote that one winter, when her family came to pick her up in LeRoy, the snow was so deep on the roads, that they had to take to the fields, where the wind had cleared away some of the snow. Over the Ice and Snow This image was taken from Turner’s History of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase and shows the early pioneer in winter, having just arrived, with his oxen and the ox sled. Just because history in LeRoy always leads to Jell-O, this painting appeared in a Jell-O recipe book in the 1920s. The caption: “ Far- fetched? Not a bit of it, except in the sense that this box of Jell-O has been brought a long, long way. For we do have customers who live under the Artic Circle and who say cold, hard things of us if we do not arrange for shipping connections before the trails are closed with the winter’s snows.” (Not an ox sled, but dog sled.)